It seems like most people collect something. Vinyl records, movies, figurines, sports memorabilia, fine china, anything. I have a buddy who collects decks of playing cards, for crying out loud. For me, big shocker, it’s video games.
I’ve been playing games since I was so young that I don’t have any actual memories of starting. Between then and now, I have naturally amassed a respectable collection. This growing pile of memories has given me a strong appreciation for physical media and what a digital library truly cannot replace. But cataloguing that collection, and figuring out what I already own or still want while buying and trading at conventions, is much harder than it should be.
Trading card collectors have apps like Collectr, which acts as both a collection log and a value tracker. When you are searching for something new, buying from someone or working out a trade, you can quickly reference what you own and whether the prices in front of you are fair.
For a long time, I’ve wanted something similar for video games. Apparently, Michael Flarup did too, because he just launched Cibby.
An Unreasonable amount of detail
Cibby creator Michael Flarup is a Danish designer and game developer best known for his longtime work in app and icon design. He runs independent game studio Northplay and design studio Pixelresort, and previously created the App Icon Book series, an archival project documenting the history and craft of iOS and macOS icons. That background may help explain why Cibby feels as genuine and passionate as it does. It is another project obsessed with cataloguing visual objects and presenting them properly.
It is also, according to Cibby’s own website, an app built by one person. Flarup says he made it because he wanted a collection app that cared about the physical objects, not just a list of games. That very personal starting point makes sense once you see how much unnecessary, in the seriously the most complimentary way, detail has gone into it.
Cibby is a video game collection app, but its defining feature is the way it presents the games you own. Instead of reducing them to cover thumbnails, Cibby renders each physical release as an interactive 3D box, complete with its front, back and spine. You can pick a game up, turn it over and tilt it in the light, which is about as close as a collection app can get to letting you pull something off your actual shelf.
From the NES to the Xbox Series X, Cibby launched with support for 47 physical platforms and more than 60 case standards. Cardboard boxes, jewel cases and modern plastic cases all keep their own shapes and materials. The region and edition matter too, so a German release or special edition is treated as a particular copy rather than another instance of the same cover art.
That does not mean every variation is already represented perfectly. Cibby’s catalogue is still being built one box at a time, and some releases or packaging details are inevitably missing. Its camera tools let collectors scan the front, back and spine of their own copies, either to personalize their shelf or submit a better version to the larger catalogue.
As Flarup puts it in Cibby’s launch materials:
Every platform has its own shapes, materials and little details. Cibby tries to capture those differences, from cardboard boxes and jewel cases to modern plastic cases. The front, back and spine are rendered live, giving each game a proper place on your shelf.
Not Just a Collection App
There is more on offer here than just putting your collection in your pocket. Each copy can hold its own play status, personal rating and notes, along with details like condition, completeness and what you paid for it. You can mark a game as actively playing, completed or untouched, while keeping the games you are still hunting on a separate wishlist.
That pushes Cibby into the same territory as Backloggd and the never-ending search for a “Letterboxd for video games.” Backloggd starts with what you play and what you thought about it. Cibby starts with the copy you own, then builds those tracking features around it.
At least for what I want, that gives Cibby the edge. The fact that it is an actual iPhone app already makes it more convenient than a web first service when I am standing in front of my shelves or walking around a convention. But it is the combination of physical collection management and play tracking that makes it feel like more than a nicer looking database. Once everything is entered, there are still reasons to keep opening it.
Cibby can also show estimated values and PriceCharting history for the copies you own. Its Discover page changes daily with featured games, platform spotlights, a Game of the Day, games released on the current date and a daily quiz shared by everyone. Soundtracks can play while you browse too, with full playback for Apple Music subscribers and previews for everyone else.
Bringing Your Collection Into Cibby
Of course, making your collection look nice does not matter much if getting it into the app is miserable. Depending on the size of your shelf, entering every game one at a time could be enough to stop the whole project before it starts.
Cibby gives you a few ways around that. Existing collections can be imported from another collection app or a spreadsheet, while individual games can be found through a normal search or by scanning the barcode on the box. There is also a Shelf Scan feature that lets you photograph a row of games and have Cibby attempt to identify their spines privately on your device.
That last feature is still labeled as a beta, and I would not expect it to perfectly recognize every sun faded Genesis box or tiny Switch spine you point it at. Still, it is exactly the kind of feature that makes sense in a native phone app. Whether I am standing in front of my own shelf, digging through a convention booth or checking a game at a store, my phone is already the thing I am going to have with me. And I’ve used the feature a little bit myself to get a good chunk of my collection onto the app, and I gotta say that I am thoroughly impressed. It’s not perfect, but it’s damn good.
Collectors can also photograph the front, back and spine of a missing release and turn their own copy into a box for their shelf. Those scans can optionally be submitted to the wider Cibby Catalogue, where they can fill a gap or improve an existing entry. The app rewards approved contributions with XP and unlockable icons, which is a much more entertaining way of asking users to help maintain a database.
The Rough Edges
Cibby is launching with an enormous catalogue, but an enormous catalogue is not the same thing as a complete one. Some releases are still missing, while others may have incorrect packaging information or scans that need to be replaced. Flarup is fairly direct about this, describing the catalogue as a work in progress that collectors will help improve over time.
That is worth keeping in mind if your shelf leans heavily toward obscure regional releases, limited editions or games that never had especially good documentation in the first place. Cibby’s attention to exact physical copies is its greatest strength, but that specificity also creates far more opportunities for something to be absent or wrong.
There are some ordinary early-app problems as well. In my time with it, I have encountered multiple games with bugging box art, or the art not loading at all. Some QOL issues were present as well, like needing to add every game as “Complete in Box” to your collection, and then manually change them to “Damaged” or “Loose” individually.
The other major limitation is platform support. Cibby is currently made for iPhone and requires iOS 18.5 or later. There is no native Android version, which immediately excludes a large portion of the collectors who might otherwise be interested.
The encouraging part is that Cibby does not appear to have been tossed onto the App Store and abandoned. Its first updates have already addressed scanning, search, larger imports and sync problems. Flarup has also been responding to bug reports and feature requests through the Cibby Discord. The feature request thread is active on both the community and developer sides, and several early bug reports have already resulted in fixes. That is enough to make me optimistic about the project’s trajectory.
Pricing and Availability
Cibby is available for iPhone and requires iOS 18.5 or later. The free version includes every feature and an unlimited wishlist, but limits the owned collection to 10 games. That is enough to see whether the presentation and workflow click, but obviously nowhere near enough for most of the people the app is designed for.
Cibby Pro removes the collection limit. In the United States, it costs $3.99 per month, $29.99 per year or $79.99 as a one-time purchase. I appreciate the lifetime option being there, especially for an app meant to hold a collection for years rather than a few months.
Price estimates and history come from PriceCharting, while soundtrack playback is integrated with Apple Music. Cibby also lets users export their collection as spreadsheets and an offline webpage, along with their original scans at full resolution. That last part matters: after putting potentially hundreds of games and plenty of manual work into an app, I want to know I can get that information back out.
A Catalogue of Passion
Cibby’s most convincing feature may ultimately be how specific it is. It does not feel like an app designed by committee to satisfy every possible definition of a game collection. It feels like one collector and designer built the collection app he personally wanted, then kept going until an unreasonable amount of the physical hobby could fit inside it.
There are already other ways to track what games I have played, and there are other databases that can tell me what a game is worth. Cibby stands out because it pulls those ideas together without treating the physical copy as an incidental piece of packaging. The platform matters. The region matters. The condition and edition matter. Even the shape of the box matters.
It is still early, and the catalogue will probably never be completely finished. Physical game history is simply too strange, fragmented and poorly documented for that. But for collectors who care as much about the copy sitting on the shelf as the software stored inside it, that specificity might be exactly the point.
I will definitely be taking Cibby with me every time I’m at a convention game shopping, or out hunting that CIB Majora’s Mask, that I will definitely find one day and it definitely won’t be my forever white whale. Trust.
DISCLAIMER: This article was not sponsored in anyway, nor do I have any affiliation with Cibby, or the developers.